


Luck Runs Out

by ant5b



Series: All the Luck in the World [1]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: AU, Both Donald and Della disappeared, Duck family headcanons, Gladstone is raising the triplets, Parent!Gladstone, headcanons about Gladstone's upbringing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-10
Updated: 2018-02-04
Packaged: 2019-02-13 05:47:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12977355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ant5b/pseuds/ant5b
Summary: No one hates Gladstone's luck more than Gladstone himself.





	1. Sleepless

Gladstone never used to be a light sleeper. 

His grandmother used to say that he slept like someone without a care in the world, and joked that one could yell right in his ear without him producing so much as a twitch.This was unequivocally false of course, but it didn’t stop his cousins from trying it on him  _ repeatedly _ . 

Now, though, he woke at the creak of his bedroom door opening. 

“Uncle Gladstone? Are you awake?” 

“Whu...kid?” 

His response was more of a graceless mumble, but enough to draw the child at his darkened doorway further into his room.  It was too dark to see, but the empty space at his side dipped under the weight of a small body. He raised his arm, and his nephew nestled close to his chest. 

But Gladstone hissed, jerking away from the sudden freezing sensation against his shins. 

“ _ Yeesh _ , cold feet, Dew!”

His nephew’s bubble of laughter was stilted, but a good sign. Gladstone propped his chin atop Dewey’s head, and pressed a comforting hand between his shoulder blades. 

“The dream again, huh?” he asked, despite already knowing the answer. 

Dewey’s shoulders trembled beneath Gladstone’s hand, and he nodded wordlessly, face still pressed against his uncle’s chest.

“Okay,” Gladstone said on a sigh, rubbing Dewey’s back.

A moment passed, his eyes getting adjusted to the gloom with the aid of the thin sliver of moonlight that had found a way through his closed curtains. 

“How long do you think until the other two Stooge’s join us?” Gladstone commented lightly. 

Dewey snorted, as he’d hoped. “You’re so  _ old _ .”

“How many times have I told you? I’m  _ cultured _ , not old.” 

“That’s what an old person would say.”

Gladstone’s door creaked again, and he looked over to see Huey and Louie edging into his bedroom. 

“Hey, now it’s a party,” he joked, nudging Dewey to get his attention. 

Louie was trying to look casual, lingering at the foot of Gladstone’s bed.  “I remembered Dewey owed me ten bucks, but he wasn’t in his room —” he started to say, only for Huey to interrupt with well-meaning honesty. 

“We were worried about Dewey,” said Gladstone’s oldest nephew, his expression drawn in concern.   

Dewey grumbled something that might’ve been “I’m  _ fine _ ,” but Gladstone recognized the undercurrent of relief in his nephew’s tone and the way the stiffness of his shoulder lessened. 

“Well, c’mon,” Gladstone said with a smile, patting the mattress. “The more the merrier.” 

Huey made a beeline for Dewey’s side of the bed, though it took a little longer for Louie to drop his cavalier act. He eventually curled up on Gladstone’s opposite side, not quite touching, until his uncle tucked him against his side. 

Gladstone’s bedroom was filled with the sound of their quiet breathing for several long moments, but he knew better than to fall asleep again, no matter how fatigue tugged temptingly on his eyelids.  His hunch proved correct when Dewey’s voice rose from their tight huddle. 

“Uncle Gladstone...can you tell us about our mom and Uncle Donald again?”

Despite knowing it was coming, Gladstone’s chest still ached with grief. 

“Sure thing, kiddo,” he allowed, subtly tightening his embrace around the three of them so they knew he was addressing them collectively. “But only for a bit, okay? I need my beauty sleep, and so do you.”

They raised token protests about looking beautiful at all hours, before Gladstone shushed them laughingly. 

“Alright, alright...have I told you guys about the time your mom had to navigate us through a storm over the Bermuda Triangle?”

“‘Using nothing but her wits when her instruments failed her’!” Huey recited eagerly from memory. 

“Tell it again,” Louie encouraged his uncle. 

Ignoring the tightness in his throat, Gladstone launched into a quieter telling of the story than usual. “There was low visibility, high winds; a storm was clearly brewing, and your Uncle Donald was worried we wouldn’t make it before it hit. But your mom was determined to get the supplies to the Peace Corps volunteers, storm or no storm!” 

His nephews clustered even closer as he painted a fantastical picture of their family, sparing no detail, almost as if he’d been there himself. 

They fell asleep to his tale, imaginations running wild with the exploits of their mother and better uncle. And like every time he talked about them, Gladstone found sleep eluding him despite his tiredness, and he stayed awake staring at the ceiling. 

Nearly a decade had done little to fill the hole in his heart, or dim the certainty that his luck was a farce, because  _ they  _ were the ones who deserved to be here in his place. Instead they were _gone_ , he didn't know where, and his boys were left with a paltry replacement. 


	2. Empty Spaces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ever since he was born, Gladstone was told he was lucky.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay, but I hope you enjoy this chapter! I'll be delving a bit into my own headcanons for Gladstone, particularly this story's interpretation of him and his childhood. Let me know what you thought in the comments below! 
> 
> On a different note!  
> If you didn't know, I host a Ducktales podcast where a best friend and I review every episode of Ducktales (2017)! If you're missing Ducktales during this long hiatus, you could check out "Amores Patos" on iTunes, Libsyn, and Google Play, and find our tumblr @amorespatospodcast!

No one could deny that Gladstone was lucky. 

Annoyingly, unnaturally, some even thought  _ supernaturally  _ lucky. 

If he was short on rent, he’d buy any old scratcher and win ten thousand dollars on the spot. If Gladstone needed to eat he’d find a wallet with no ID and fifty bucks inside. Or a kindly stranger would offer to pay for his meal, or he’d win an all expenses paid trip to the Bahamas — you get the gist. 

In his youth, his luck was simpler. 

An extra scoop of ice cream here, a dropped twenty dollar bill there, just enough so that it was  _ fun _ . It was fun to see Donald seethe and make Della laugh, during the carefree summers of their youth, spent on Grandma Duck’s farm. But at the end of the summer his cousins would go back home, and Gladstone would stay, sleeping in his mother’s old bedroom. 

Gladstone’s mother had been lucky too. 

Daphne Gander,  née Duck, was to a young Gladstone’s mind, the cleverest, most amazing woman on earth. She never worked a day, but Gladstone remembered her receiving free tickets to Switzerland, spa appointments and weekend getaways free of charge in the mail each morning. Whenever they went out, they would win complimentary breakfasts and he and his mother would eat mountains of blueberry waffles, something his father never allowed at home. 

“We have  _ luck _ , Gladi, and that’s all we’ll ever need,” she would promise him, on the rare occasions he asked about the empty pantry or why it was only ever the two of them in their big, empty townhouse. 

Gladstone’s mother imparted on him the language of her parents, whom he’d never met, and their parents before them. 

_ “Es muy importante saber más de un idioma, _ ” she’d tell him softly, during their daily lessons, “ _ ¿Me entiendes, Gladi?” _

_ “Si, Mamá,”  _ he would dutifully answer. 

But his mother would ban Spanish for the rest of the day, especially in the presence of his father. Gladstone recalled there being several things he wasn’t allowed to do around Goostave Gander. 

Gladstone actually had very few memories of the goose himself, likely because of how little he saw of his father. He had a vague recollection of a stern, bespectacled man with cold eyes, and how much he’d disliked being around him. 

When his father was home there would be no races down the expansive halls, no music, no messes. Gladstone always had to dress nicely to greet him in the foyer with his mother, who would had touched up her roots, making her hair look like spun gold. Gladstone would sit in the bathroom with her sometimes when she poured the acrid-smelling chemicals into her hair, telling him with a smile that his father always preferred blondes. 

Gladstone didn’t like being around his father, but beyond dreading his few visits paid the man little mind. For a time, he was too young to understand that their family was not a normal one, that most children didn’t grow up in empty, pristine townhouses with only their mothers for company, only seeing their father once a week. 

He couldn’t have known the strife his mother endured to get where she was, the heated arguments with Elvira that eventually led to their estrangement. 

“ _ I’m worried about you, mija, he’s too old for you.”  _

_ “Don’t you understand, Mamá? My luck led me to him! And my luck is  _ never  _ wrong! I’m  _ meant  _ to be with Goostave!” _

He was lucky, his mother was lucky. That was all they’d ever need. 

But then his father died. 

Gladstone felt very little as the black coffin was lowered into the ground, Goostave Gander little more than a stranger to his son. 

Daphne, however, was inconsolable. She’d cried for hours and hours, and at the funeral her eyes were red and dull, unseeing but for the shiny black coffin. 

Gladstone remembered trying to hold her hand, but it had remained limp in his grasp. 

One memory that stood out bright  like an ember in his mind was his first time meeting another member of his family —Scrooge McDuck. 

The funeral ended, and Gladstone remained at Daphne’s side even as the other mourners began to trickle away. He glared at all those who gave his mother so much as a second glance for remaining, unmoving, beside Goostave’s grave. 

An older duck began to approach them, someone Gladstone had noticed the moment he first arrived. He didn’t look like a member of his father’s family or his business associates, alternatively plain and stone faced or tearfully soliloquizing about what a great man his father had been.  He was wearing a black coat like the other mourners, but he also had big sideburns, a top hat, and a cane. 

For a moment he peered down at Gladstone through the small glasses on his beak, expression inscrutable to his six-year-old mind, before removing his top hat to acknowledge the duckling’s mother. 

“Daphne,” he said politely, his accent as strange as his appearance. 

Gladstone’s mother startled, turning away from the grave for perhaps the first time that afternoon. Her eyes were glassy and her expression was one of shock. 

“Scrooge! I.. _ god _ , it’s been years. Last time I saw you was…” Daphne trailed off, looking away again, and the strange duck finished her sentence for her.

“Humberto’s funeral,” he shortly, but not without sympathy. 

“Right,” Daphne replied softly. 

The moment his mother began drifting once more into melancholy, Gladstone took up a defensive stance, his eyes narrowed at the strange duck.

Daphne only noticed when Scrooge chuckled at the sight. “Are ye goin’ to introduce me yer guard dog?”

“Oh, Gladi, this is Scrooge McDuck,” she started to explain, kneeling beside her son. “He’s, well…”

Daphne floundered for a moment, her faculties flagging under embarrassed exhaustion, but Scrooge didn’t bring any attention to it as he held out his hand to Gladstone. 

“No need for formalities, lad, just Uncle Scrooge is fine.”

Gladstone shook his hand, still scrutinizing him suspiciously. Plenty of his father’s friends had expressed pity at his fatherless state, and told him to call them “uncle” or “aunt”, despite never having met them before in his life, much like the strange duck before him. 

“Did you know my father?” Gladstone asked him once the handshake had ended. His mother rose to her feet, her hands alighting on his shoulders. 

Scrooge nodded, as he’d expected. “Aye,” he said. “We were business partners. But if I’m bein’ honest, I came to see  _ you _ .”

Daphne’s grip tightened on Gladstone’s shoulders for a moment. 

“Oh?” she said neutrally. 

“Both of ye,” Scrooge amended, putting his top hat back on. “It’s been ages since we - since  _ anyone  _ saw either hide o’ hair of ye —”

Daphne interrupted him with a sigh. “My mom sent you, didn’t she?”

For it a moment it seemed Scrooge would attempt to protest the accusation, but then he crossed his arms with a huff. “ _ You _ try sayin’ no to that woman,” he retorted, “Elvira can be downright terrifyin’ when she puts her mind to it.”

Daphne turned away, drawing Gladstone closer to her. “Well, thank you, Scrooge, but you can let her know that we’re  _ fine _ .”

“I’d say yer far from  _ fine _ , Daphne,” Scrooge argued more firmly. “Ye needn’t raise the lad all on yer own.”

“I’m  _ lucky _ !” Daphne said, and to Gladstone’s mind it sounded like she might cry again. “Don’t you understand,  _ nothing  _ can go wrong!”

She made a choking sound, and covered her beak with one hand. Gladstone turned to hug his mother around the middle, pressing his face against her stomach in the hopes of pushing out the memory of his father’s casket, gleaming like a black beetle in the sunlight, out of his mind. 

Scrooge’s voice gentled. “We’re worried is all, Daphne. Ye haven’t answered the phone in weeks, Quackmore tried seein’ ye and ye nae even let him through the door—”

“So what are you, their last resort?” Daphne said with a watery laugh. 

Scrooge smirked. “Auch, are ye jokin’? If ye dinnae listen to me, yer mother’s threatening to send  _ Hortense _ .”  

Daphne laughed softly, smiling for the first time in days. She was quiet for several long moments, looking down at Gladstone pressed against her side. 

“How is everyone?” she finally said. 

“Ye can see for yourself,” Scrooge suggested, “They’re all at the farm. I can take ye, if ye’d like.” 

He offered Daphne his arm, and even then, Gladstone knew a lifeline when he saw one. 

Daphne didn’t look away from Gladstone until she answered, meeting Scrooge’s gaze with a small smile, “Okay. I...I’d like that.” 

Clutching Gladstone by the hand, she slipped her other hand into the crook of Scrooge’s arm, and he began leading them out of the cemetery. Daphne’s face was brighter when she looked back at her son, who was awash in confusion. 

“You’re going to meet your family, Gladi,” She explained.  

But any joy he should have felt then was tempered by the shadow that fell across his mother’s gaze that day, and failed to rise ever again. 

Gladstone was too young to understand warning signs, but he did understand luck. He knew he and his mother were special, in a way most people weren’t. In a way his father hadn’t been. 

They were  _ lucky _ .

Growing up, those words held a magical quality for Gladstone. Lucky people didn’t have to worry, didn’t have to work, and they’d receive everything they ever wanted in life. 

Most importantly, lucky people didn’t just  _ die _ . 

But Daphne did begin to fade. 

From the moment Goostave Gander passed away, pieces of his mother’s spirit began to break off and vanish as though they’d never been there in the first place. 

 

\----

 

They left the cement streets and skyscrapers of Duckburg that were all Gladstone had ever known in exchange for miles and miles of rolling green hills, and blue sky far as the eye could see. 

In the back of a limousine with older, austere dog behind the wheel, Scrooge sat with Gladstone and his mother.  Daphne was quiet for the duration of the drive, while Scrooge took it upon himself to entertain Gladstone with tales of conquering perilous Peruvian cliffs and hordes of lost treasure, the likes of which the duckling had never imagined. 

He tried asking his mother where they were going, but she didn’t seem to hear him. Scrooge answered for her, explaining that they was a large family gathering at the home of his grandmother, a woman Gladstone never even knew existed. 

She met them outside of a farmhouse painted butter yellow. 

Elvira Duck had a soft face, lined with age, and graying hair pulled into a bun.  The instant she saw them climb out of Scrooge’s limo she burst into a flurry of Spanish too quick for Gladstone to follow, before enveloping Daphne in a tight hug. 

She embraced Gladstone just as tightly, and said, “welcome home,  _ mijo, _ ” before passing him to another lady duck with glasses who bore a remarkable resemblance to Scrooge. 

He would learn this was his Aunt Hortense, and she in turn would lead him to his cousins, a pair of ducklings who would one day become two of the most important people in his life. 

Donald and Della Duck were two years younger than him, a fact which they allowed him to lord over them for approximately three minutes before tackling him into the dirt. 

Even at four years old they were as inseparable a team as they would ever be, wearing matching sailor suits and matching glares as they tag teamed him. 

“We’re playin’  _ pretend _ ,” Della said firmly, with an accent reminiscent of Scrooge and her mother’s. She sat triumphantly on Gladstone’s back, her arms crossed over her chest. “And I’m pretendin’ you’re a chair.” 

Donald nodded in steadfast agreement, mimicked his sister’s posture on the ground beside them. He hadn’t said a word since Gladstone joined them in the yard. 

Tired and stressed, the suit he’d worn to his father’s funeral dirty and his hair mussed, Gladstone turned his head to glower petulantly at Donald and spat,“What about  _ you _ ? Don’t you talk?” 

Donald scowled but didn’t reply, and Della smacked Gladstone on the head. 

“Don’t be  _ mean _ , Sadstone! Donny just talks funny!”

“I’m  _ Glad _ stone!” he retorted, at the same time Donald cried, “ _ Dellaaa!” _

Donald’s speech  _ was  _ odd, slurred and slightly-high pitched, but Gladstone didn’t find it  _ funny _ . But Donald was red faced now and looked on the brink of tears. 

Della noticed almost immediately. 

“Sorry, Donny, sorry!” she said, leaping off Gladstone’s back to comfort her brother. 

Gladstone pushed himself up out of the dirt as Della wrapped her arms around Donald, patting him on the head. He turned his back on them, sniffling and blinking back tears of his own as he tried to rub the dirt out of his jacket. 

Friendship was never one of his strong suits. He interacted rarely with children his own age, homeschooled by his mother so as to leave the safety of their townhouse as little as possible. 

They would make brief excursions to the park, where Gladstone would make stilted attempts at connecting with others his age. His mother always assured him that with his luck, he didn’t need anyone else. That they were in a league of their own, and the approval of others was meaningless. 

Gladstone was never as good as her at ignoring the capriciousness of others, but it stung just a little more coming from the family he’d only just become eager to meet. 

But Gladstone startled at the feeling of a small body colliding with his back, arms wrapping around his torso, and he turned to face Della and a sniffling Donald. 

“Sorry for sitting on you, Sadstone,” Della said sincerely, standing and embracing him just as she’d embraced Donald. Her twin joined her in the hug on Gladstone’s other side.

“An’ hittin’ you,” Donald reminded her in that garbled voice of his. 

“ _ An’ _ hittin’ you,” Della repeated dutifully. 

After a moment’s hesitation, Gladstone returned his cousins’ embrace. 

“It’s  _ Glad _ stone,” he couldn’t help but point out. 


End file.
